Lady Susan paused in the doorway.
“Well, my dear, don’t vex your soul too much about it all. However badly people mismanage our affairs for us, things have a wonderful way of working out all right in the long run.”
Left alone, Ann strolled out on to the balcony which overlooked the lake, and, leaning her arms on the balustrade, yielded to the current of her thoughts. Notwithstanding Lady Susan’s cheery optimism, she was considerably worried about Tony. She could see so exactly what it was that fretted him—this eternal dancing attendance on Sir Philip, who insisted on the boy’s accompanying him wherever he went, and she felt a sudden angry contempt for the selfishness of old age which could so obstinately bind eager, straining youth to its chariot wheels. It seemed to her that the older generation frequently fell very far short of its responsibility towards the younger.
With a flash of bitterness she reflected that her own father had failed in his duty to the next generation almost as signally as old Sir Philip, although in a totally different manner. Archibald Lovell had indeed been curiously devoid of any sense of paternal responsibility. Connoisseur and collector of old porcelain, he had lived a dreamy, dilettante existence, absorbed in his collection and paying little or no heed to the comings and goings of his two children, Ann and her brother Robin. And less heed still to their ultimate welfare. He neglected his estate from every point of view, except the one of raising mortgages upon it so that he might have the wherewithal to add to his store of ceramic treasures. He lived luxuriously, employing a high-priced chef and soft-footed, well-trained servants to see to his comfort, because anything short of perfection grated on his artistic sensibilities. And when an intrusive influenza germ put a sudden end to his entirely egotistical activities, his son and daughter found themselves left with only a few hundred pounds between them. Lovell Court was perforce sold at once to pay off the mortgages, and to meet the many other big outstanding debts the contents of the house had to be dispersed without reserve. The collection of old porcelain to which Archibald Lovell had sacrificed most of the human interests of life was soon scattered amongst the dealers in antiques, who, in many instances, bought back at bargain prices the very pieces they had sold to him at an extravagantly high cost. Every one went away from the Lovell sale well-pleased, except the two whose fortunes were most intimately concerned—the son and daughter of the dead man. They were left to face the problem of continued existence.
For the time being the circumstances of the war had acted as a solvent. Robin, home on sick leave, had returned to the front, while Ann, who possessed the faculty of getting the last ounce out of any car she handled, very soon found warwork as a motor-driver. But, with the return of peace, the question of pounds, shillings and pence had become more acute, and at present Robin was undertaking any odd job that turned up pending the time when he should find the ideal berth which would enable him to make a home for Ann, while the latter, thanks to the good offices of Sir Philip Brabazon, had for the last six months filled the post of companion-chauffeuse to Lady Susan Hallett.
The entire six months had been passed at Mon Rêve, Lady Susan’s villa at Montricheux, and with a jerk Ann emerged from her train of retrospective thought to the realisation that her lines had really fallen in very pleasant places, after all.
It seemed as though there were some truth in Lady Susan’s assertion that things had a way of working out all right in the end. But for her father’s mismanagement of his affairs—and the affairs of those dependent on him—Ann recognised that she might very well have been still pursuing the rather dull, uneventful life which obtained at Lovell Court, without the prospect of any vital change or happening to relieve its tedium, whereas the catastrophe which had once seemed to threaten chaos had actually opened the door of the world to her.